Neil Mackay, ever determined to tell us that white supremacism, anti-Catholic bigotry and any kind of hate crime you can imagine has not even begun to go away, even if the statistics say otherwise, is today using the personal recollections of one man, in the 1980s, to offer this headline:

‘Men with bats shouted the N-word’: Gary Younge on racism in Scotland

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23396522.men-bats-shouted-n-word-gary-younge-racism-scotland/

So, the headline misses ..40 years ago. No space?

We get lots of anecdotes about being shouted at by youths and even threatened with a baseball bat but no actual account of violence suffered, 40 years ago.

We do not get, to help us understand the phenomenon today, the kind of thing so-called professional journalists profess to offer. This:

Racially aggravated offences have been falling in Scotland since not long after the first SNP administration and are now at well under half the level 12 years ago.

Racial hate crimes in England & Wales have been climbing for the last 10 years and are now at 3 times the level, 10 years ago.

England & Wales have 11 times the population of Scotland so, all things being equal, might be expected to have around 19 000 such crimes in 20121/2022 but have nearly 110 000. Racial hate crimes are thus nearly 6 times more common.

There are more possible victims in England & Wales?

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) based on population survey figures from 2019, people from ethnic minority backgrounds make up 14.4% of the United Kingdom (16.1% for England, 5.9% for Wales, 5.4% for Scotland and 2.2% for Northern Ireland).

https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/latest-figures-ethnic-diversity-uk-120914432.html

While I’m not sure that’s enough of an excuse, even if accepted, that would only explain England having 3 times, not 6 times the number of racist crimes.

Back to Mr Mackay. Here are a few of his previous scare stories based on SFA rules: